Harriers
by Lena Carr
Summary: Daryl stuffed the stinking burlap sack into the backpack and threw it at Glenn. "Savin' your hide again, chinaman. C'mon, you're with me this mornin'." S2/S3 Interlude. Canon pairings. Glenn, Daryl. PG-13 for Dixon mouth. 6K words. More A/N at the end.


**A/N at the end.**

* * *

><p>Glenn was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, because he was sitting in a nice outdoor garden, with hydrangeas and wisteria and those green things cut into weird shapes. He was sitting on a bench in the garden with Maggie, her nose buried in his collar bone, and they were watching a Braves game. The Braves were losing, which was annoying, but not as annoying as the little rock-thing – like a pile of smooth river rocks, piled one on top of each other – wandering around the bleachers and stone benches, trying to sell vegetables to the people watching the game.<p>

"Go away," Glenn told the rock-thing. "We don't want any."

"Get up," the rock-thing said. "She wants you to give her the carrot," and put a carrot in Glenn's hand. It was a huge thing, all nobby and twisted. "That's fifty bucks."

Glenn stared at the carrot and then at the rock-thing. In the outfield, the Braves shortstop missed an easy pop-fly. "Get out! I'm not paying you fifty bucks for a lousy carrot!"

The rock-thing took the carrot from Glenn's hand and began beating his foot with it.

"What the hell? Stop that!"

The rock-thing scowled at him. "Get up." The rock-thing sounded like Daryl Dixon. Glenn kicked at it. The rock-thing knocked his foot aside and then wacked him in the leg again. This time it hurt.

"C'mon, chinaman, get up."

Beside Glenn, Maggie stirred, grumbling, and then came awake with a start. "What – where –"

"Maggie, go back to sleep. Glenn, _get your ass up_."

It _was_ Daryl. Glenn peeled his eyes open. It was still dark inside the tent, but outside the tent flap, the slate sky promised daylight was on the way. Maggie already had the blanket back over her head. Glenn groaned, rubbed his face, and crawled to the entrance of their tent. Daryl backed off, waving at Glenn to follow him. Feeling deeply confused, Glenn staggered upright. He eyed the damp ground but refused to step out. He was still in his sleeping socks. A line of bright color lit the sky to the east over the trees. "Did I oversleep? Wait – what –" He blinked, rubbed his face some more, and finally forced enough brain cells into action to recognize that _no_, walkers weren't attacking,_ no_, it wasn't time for his watch, _yes_, it was still cold as all hell, _yes_, dawn was breaking, and _yes_, there was a vehicle missing.

And Daryl Dixon was crouched outside his tent, sorting through Glenn's spare backpack.

He hugged himself, shivering. "Daryl, what are you doing? Why am I up?"

"Running the lines, one more time. Git your shit."

Glenn groaned. "Daryl, I don't want to go wading in the swamp with you." Daryl shrugged, muttered something incomprensible into the backpack. "Daryl, we're leaving in a few hours. Why do we have to go out? Why do _I_ have to go out? I got ticks last time I went on a woods crawl with you – in fact, I got a tick on my –" The knit hat hit Glenn in the face, cutting him off. "Daryl!"

The other man rolled up off his knees and stepped close into Glenn's face. "Rick's off scouting the highway. Hershel an' T got watch. In about fifteen minutes, Lori's gonna get up, wash her face, figure out that Rick took her little boy to go do Dad stuff, and that whoever packed up the truck last night managed to drop Lori's tea bags _and_ her coat in the mud –"

Glenn groaned. "Oh, man, did I?"

" -where they've been sitting all night."

Glenn put his hands over his head. "Ah, no." He sighed, dropped his arms again. "Right. Going to get yelled at. For everything. But why am I up?"

Daryl stepped back and dropped to his heels again, still searching for something in Glenn's gear.

"Daryl. Yeah, Lori's going to kill me in a little while, but I could have slept until then. Why did you get me up?"

Daryl grunted, came up with a mini bottle of Dawn, and stood, stuffing a stinking burlap sack into the backpack before throwing it at Glenn. " Saving your hide, chinaman. Again." Over his shoulder, he said, loud enough for all of Georgia to hear, "And your woman's on the rag. So you've got zero reason to be in camp this morning. Grab your shit. You're comin' with me."

Glenn thought about it, sighed, and said. "Okay. That actually makes sense." He turned to crawl back into the tent after his extra shirt. He had to dig around to find his gloves.

Maggie shifted her hip over, away from his probing fingers. "Ge'off. How the fuck did he know that?"

"Sorry, sorry. I don't know. I didn't tell him. I didn't know – um, until last night, I mean…"

Maggie swatted at his hand, not in a playful or minxish or otherwise fun way, either. Glenn found his glove, pulled off his long-sleeved shirt, put the other short-sleeved on, then the long-sleeved, then his sweat shirt, and then the coat. And his hat. He crawled half the way back out of the tent before hesitating and ducking back in to plant a kiss on the blankets in the general area of Maggie's ear.

Whatever she mumbled, it didn't sound like "I love you, too, honey."

Didn't sound like "Jump off a tree and die," either. Glenn counted his fortune as he found it.

The campsite was definitely brighter when he emerged from the tent. Glenn waved at Hershel, who waved back from his slow walk-around of the camp. As Glenn laced his boots, the old man finished his circuit and returned the watch log at the far side of camp, to sit back to back with T-Dog. The heavy-set black man had a book open on one knee, and a shotgun propped against the other. It was much too far to hear what they were saying, but Glenn would bet they were continuing Lutheran-AME theological hairsplitting, version one zillion. Glenn sat down to snug his pants cuffs to his legs with an extra set of shoe laces. Putting Hershel and T-Dog on watch together was one of the few things that had worked out well over the winter. Most things hadn't. Even things that originally looked good – like this burned out house with a good fence – ran out of upsides really fast. Glenn finished with his pants, collected his shotgun, and did a quick walk around the yard, stopping at the piss tree while he was at it.

The house had looked okay when they first followed the tire tracks down to the end of the gravel road. The ashes of the house had long gone cold, and there was nothing to salvage. But the concrete slab promised a dry place to sleep, the fence would delay walkers, and they could split their attention between scavenging the neighboring houses and living off the land.

But the houses had already been looted, the land taxed even Daryl's ability to reap sustenance, and the fenced yard got really tight, really fast.

_It really is small_, Glenn thought, when his footsteps brought him past the gate, and the deep ruts in the mud left by the Suburban. Even having an empty space by the Hyundai didn't make it any bigger. There was the _girls' tent_, that Beth and Carol were sharing, and the _men's tent_, that was Hershel and T-Dog. And there was the one that technically belonged to the Grimes, but only Lori and Carl regularly slept in. Rick had been spending the night in the back of the Suburban, most days.

Daryl's bag and tarp were already rolled up and stowed on the back of his bike. Daryl himself had wandered over by the firepit, where Carol stood with her arms folded closely to her body. She nodded at something Daryl said – _now he's quiet, Jesus, two volumes, eleven and_ off – and took the coat that Daryl held out to her. Daryl made a frustrated gesture with one arm that encompassed the whole camp, the sunrise, Glenn, and probably the rest of the world. Carol shook her head, mouth quirking, and said something that made Daryl snort as Glenn walked up. She was smiling when she turned to Glenn.

"Good morning, Glenn," she said. "Do you want hot water? No," she said as Daryl opened his mouth. "You've got enough time to get warmed up."

So they were out of coffee and tea, which was not good at all, but Glenn did get a cup of slow-simmered hot water even if he did have to drink it standing up. The new wood on the fire was catching now, but there wasn't much of it, and the so-called dry stack was as damp as it had been all week. Carol re-filled his cup from the little overnight pot and Glenn sipped that one faster, watching the smoke rise off the firepit. Then Daryl finished his cup, made a trip to the piss tree, and came back to collect his bow and an empty rucksack. Glenn patted his pockets, gave his mug back to Carol.

"Got everything?" Daryl didn't bother waiting for a response from Glenn before slinging his crossbow, nodding to Carol and taking off.

The loop Daryl took them on was a meandering track – half deer trail, half weed-whack, half wade. The trail had been moderately dry almost two weeks ago, when Glenn had first gone with Daryl on his morning trot at a new camp.

'Trot' was one more thing to add to the list of things which Glenn hadn't known, before the end of the world.

This had been a week after the farm had burned, at an old gas station just off off the highway, when the initial shock had worn off and the full extent of the desperation of their situation had not yet set in. The mood had been optimistic enough that even Rick and Lori had been getting along, for the second morning in a row. Daryl had waved Rick off and stalked over to where Glenn had been helping Maggie and Beth clear away brambles to set up the tents.

"Hey, grab your coat, need a backup to check the trot. You're it."

Glenn had sighed. "I'm what?"

"Backup. Nobody goes out alone."

"Awesome. Backup for what?"

"Trot." Glenn must have looked as confused as he felt, because Daryl relented enough to start in on the mockery. "You know, trot line? Set a'snares? Night lines?"

In the summer, the sneer in Daryl's voice would have been enough to make Glenn shrink back and fall silent. Since then, he'd fought beside Daryl, saved his life, and had the redneck pull his nuts out of the fire more than once. Glenn had learned a few things in that time.

Glenn had dropped the tent pole and folded his arms. "Do you want me to go back over the causes of the Iraq War and climate change?"

Daryl had snorted. "Sure. When it _matters_." Because say what you liked about Merle Dixon's retrograde, Cro-Magnon-but-that-was-an-insult-to-Cro-Magnons, slightly-right-of-Genghis Khan political viewpoint, Merle had actually possessed an awareness of the wider world. His younger brother? Not so much. Wealth of knowledge about mud, weeds, and bugs, but Glenn still suspected that Daryl's knowledge of global politics had ended with a low C in ninth grade history class.

Still, Daryl had a point. So Glenn had collected his coat, grinned at Maggie, and followed Daryl on the trot. Which, contrary to expectations, generally involved a lot of walking. And walking into spiders. And blisters. And trying his damnedest to figure out when Daryl wanted him to shut up and when it was okay to ask questions.

That had been months ago, before Christmas, and uncounted miles back. While no one was going to suspect Glenn of becoming Jeremiah Johnson any time soon, he'd gotten a lot better. Well, a little. Enough that Glenn was the designated fall-back guy when Rick wasn't available to go hunting with Daryl.

Glenn refused to dwell on his position relative to the girls, Hershel - a seventy-two year old man - and T, who was easily their strongest member – and just as easily, the clumsiest. Instead, he concentrated on keeping up with Daryl, keeping his footing, staying quiet, and keeping an eye out for walkers.

The first leg of the trot took them down around the southern edge of the lake, where the water met the rocky ground and the brush was relatively sparse. Glenn obediently stood watch while Daryl pulled the first long line in hand over hand, the water bottle float making a slow mark in the water. Most of the dozen hooks were empty – only two small catfish hung from the short branch lines. In Daryl's hand, the fish were grey as the stones, bellies white as snow, their barbs soft and barely formed. They wiggled like earthworms, their mouths gaping and flapping – _more like snapping cats than drowning kittens_, Glenn thought. Daryl cut off the float and pulled the hooks with a pair of needle nose pliers, hesitating over the smaller one for a long moment.

Glenn paused in winding up the long line, mindful of the loose hooks. "What is it?"

Daryl shook his head. Leaning back over the water, he let the little cat slip out of his hand and back into the water. "Dinky. Not worth the effort of skinnin'." Rising, he dusted at his damp knees. "C'mon."

They followed the line of the lake around to the west, checking and gathering four other lines as they went.

"You'd think, seeing as we did good, letting that little one go, we'd find these all full of fat fish at the end of their productive lives," Glenn said, as they pulled in the third one, bare of anything except a mudslider turtle, the leathery shell barely wider than Glenn's palm. The turtle had swallowed the hook down, so that its nose was nearly to the long line. "Willing sacrifices to let us not starve."

Daryl grunted. "Guess we ain't living that right." He pulled the turtle out and wedged the soft, flat body under his knee, keeping the turtle's head stretched out. With his free hand, he hefted a rock and crushed the turtle's skull. Glenn held open the game bag.

The fourth line was broken, halfway out. Daryl stared at the frayed end, his face grim.

"There," Glenn said, pointing across the open water. "Isn't that the float? That orange Fanta bottle?"

Daryl stood, muttering under his breath. The clear plastic bottle with its bright orange label moved slowly against the current, creating a v-shaped wake that was quickly torn apart by the wind-driven ripples. It skirted the edge of the cattails, caught one bent reed momentarily, and then jerked free.

They watched the float slowly bob out of sight, around the line of reeds.

Daryl waved a hand in disgust. "Damn snapper. Just took the whole thing with him. Hope you drown, motherfucker." Turning, he rolled the remaining line in his hand and passed it to Glenn. "C'mon. Maybe we'll have better luck with the snares."

They didn't. The first one played with their expectations by holding a skinny rabbit. When Daryl passed it over, Glenn could feel the bones through the skin. Three of the remaining four were empty – even Glenn's eyes could see how the light covering of leaves had been undisturbed. The fifth looked like a grenade had gone off – dirt and leaves strewn everywhere, and bits of fluff scattered about. Daryl scowled at the mess, poking here and there.

Glenn stood watching, rifle dangling from his hands, completely lost. Daryl looked up and must have noted the blank look on his face. "C'mere," he said, motioning Glenn closer, and using a twig to flip leaves off the mud.

"Coyote." He pointed at a mark on the dirt. "Grabbed our dinner. Fuckin' asshole." He scratched the back of his neck. "Really not living right."

"Maybe we should have Hershel and T give more bible talks."

"M'not that hungry." Daryl stood. "Not yet." He started to head back the way they had come, barely pausing for Glenn to scramble out of the way, before his head snapped to the side. Daryl abruptly reversed course and smashed through the reeds, Glenn at his heels.

A finger of the lake stretched into the marsh there, closer and deeper than most of the inlets, but Glenn was almost on top of it before he saw what Daryl was chasing - the orange Fanta bottle, cruising along purposefully.

Daryl's foot went into the water with a splash. Cursing, he jerked it out again, sending an arc of frigid water at Glenn. Sidestepping to stay up with the bottle, Daryl tore at his coat buttons, stripping out of the garment. "Here!" he snapped, thrusting it at Glenn, before stretching his legs to hop to the next clump of reeds. He tottered there a moment, arms waving for balance, before he recovered and crouched, one hand entangled in a laurel bush, the other snatching at the bottle as it passed.

"Woot!" Glenn cheered, as Daryl came up with the bottle in his hand. One foot stayed on the mini island, but the other went into the drink. Daryl ignored it, focused on pulling in the line hand over hand.

"You got it! You got it! I can see him!" Glenn could see the turtle, a big one, wide as a dinner plate, dark under the ripple-woven surface. "Pull him hard!"

The line abruptly snapped. Daryl went down with a splash in the water. When he clambered back up to his feet, the main line hung loose in his hand. The orange float bobbed free at his knees, half crushed.

The turtle surfaced, just for a second, at the far edge of the open inlet.

"Well, fuck," Daryl said, and threw the line at Glenn. It hit the water half way and immediately sank. "Fuck," Daryl said again. He turned around and waded out of the water, wet to his hips and with mud up past the bindings on his trousers. Glenn held out a hand and helped him up the bank, passing over the coat wordlessly.

They squelched their way back to dry land, around the long curve of the marsh, and up the hill to a sandy patch of sunlight with a cedar to block the breeze. They were both sweating by the time they plopped down. Daryl plucked at his boots and pant legs, slowly untangling the soaked cords, until he had the leg bindings undone and his boots and socks off. Shucking his coat, Daryl rubbed at his bare feet until they were dry, and then propped his heels on a sleeve.

"That sucked a little," Glenn said. "Are you going to go hypothermic? Because, you know, I'm willing to get naked to save your life."

Daryl tipped his head back, eyes closed against the sun. "What, so your girlfriend can kill me? Easier to just freeze to death."

"Maggie would understand."

"Your woman's a jealous, vicious bitch. Not getting naked with you. Even if I was dyin', which I ain't."

"Thank you," Glenn said, finally, when the silence had dragged on long enough. "Not just – not just for showing me how to do this. And for feeding us all. But – for today. Thanks." He sat back, looked up at the sparrows flitting through the branches. "I think Lori might still be mad at me when we get back, but she's not yelling at me right now."

"Not you she really wants to yell at."

Which led to a consideration of who was getting yelled at in his place. "Wish – I hope she's not too pissed."

Daryl shrugged. "She'll get over it. And then, tomorrow, there's gonna be something else."

"I can see why Rick doesn't want to stay in camp."

Daryl snorted, shifted his feet to get more of the sunshine. "Think if he'd stay in camp, she wouldn't yell so much. Feels like ever'body's ignoring her, has to yell louder to get people to pay attention." He leaned back on his elbows. "Tired of listening to Lori pester Carol with all her problems. Carol can't fix 'em."

"Yeah, Maggie was griping the other day, too. Maggie can't make it stop raining, said she doesn't know what Lori expects her to do." Glenn threw a leaf down the hill. It didn't go very far. "I'm not sure what she expects Rick to do about it, either."

Daryl rubbed at his face. "She's putting too much on Rick, expecting him to fix all the shit. Rick's setting the course for all of us – you, me, T, and Hershel lets Rick think he's telling Hersh what to do. But Lori wants…" He trailed off. "Fuck, what do I know."

But Glenn picked it up. "It's like, you know, wolf packs. The big daddy wolf, he keeps the boys in line. And the big momma wolf, she runs all the girls. But we don't have a boss momma." Daryl gave him a look. "Hey, it was on the Discovery channel."

"Before or after that bullshit about the war?"

Glenn opened his mouth to say something, but Daryl's head had suddenly come up, scanning the sky. A bird cried out – not the red-tailed hawk screams that all of them were familiar with by this point, but something else, a high chattering _ki-ki-ki-ki_.

"Wha- "

Daryl's fingers dug into on his shoulder. "Shhhhhh."

A silver-grey bird swooped over the marsh, then up and away, flashing a pale underside as it arched upwards. Something small and dark was clenched in its talons. It cried out again. Then, from the right, towards the dry side of the marsh, another bird sped low over the grasses. This one was mottled brown and tawny, and bigger than the grey bird. It cried out, a deeper, dropping screech that somehow still mimicked the grey hawk's call. The grey bird banked over, hard, and dropped through the air. Still high over the marsh, it released its burden. The brown bird turned on the speed, darting under the flight path of the grey bird, before gracefully rolling on its back and snatching the little what-ever-it-was out of the air with its talons. The grey bird turned skyward again.

Glenn searched for the brown bird, but it had disappeared. He blinked, awed, and struggled to make his voice work.

"Holy sh-"

Daryl shook him, hard. "Shut up. Wait."

Glenn shut. Long moments passed, with the pine trees overhead sighing, and little things creeping through the leaves again. Then Daryl raised a hand and pointed. "There."

The brown bird – still holding whatever the grey bird had dropped – flew over the marsh, low enough to brush the tips of its wings on the grasses on the down beat. It headed straight across the grasses to the far edge, where it spread wings and tail, diving into the grass.

"That was amazing," Glenn whispered. "What kind of hawk was that?"

"Marsh hawk. Nesting pair."

"So, going back to the nest? With supper? Breakfast, whatever?" Like them, Glenn thought, taking the bacon home.

"Not yet, prob'ly. Wait."

Another space, shorter this time, and the brown hawk took off again, this time winging towards them, finishing its flight in the brush at the marsh edge below them at the bottom of the hill. Glenn hugged his arms to himself and stayed quiet. Sure enough, the bird took off, launching low and flat and flying fast to the right, where it had originally come from.

Now Daryl sighed, tugged his boots back on, and rose to his feet. Glenn scrambled up after him.

"That was amazing," he said again. "That was incredible."

Daryl snorted, led the way up the hill. "Better remember that."

"As if I could forget." He looked over his shoulder, down the hill at the marsh, before turning forward again to follow Daryl. "Why? I mean, I will, of course. But why?"

Daryl stopped, let him catch up. "Won't likely ever see that again."

"Oh." And when Daryl would have turned away, leaving it at that, Glenn asked, "Why not?"

"Marsh hawks. Harriers, they call 'em, up north. Generally don't nest this far south." Daryl started up again, crossed the hill crest and began picking his way down the other side. "It's been…shit. Don't remember when I last saw a nesting pair in Georgia. Might be your damn global warming."

"Oh." Glenn ran it through his mind again, trying to fix every detail. "So, that was – wait. The daddy bird, the brown one, was baby sitting? I thought the girls did the nest thing."

Daryl stopped, turned his head up to look at Glenn, amused. Not just _Christ, what an ignorant fool_, but like he'd said something actually funny. "Na. Brown one's the female, grey's the male."

"The brown one was bigger!"

"Lotsa prey birds are like that. Eagles, falcons. Marsh hawks, the girls are more bigger. More than most." He turned down the hill again.

"Huh," Glenn said. "A whole species that digs Amazons. Cool." Glenn could understand that.

They checked the hillside snares, along the edge of the brush, before Daryl unslung his cross bow and got serious about squirrels. Glenn knew his part here – to wander around, kicking pinecones, throwing little pebbles, and in general being such an interesting thing to watch that the squirrels forgot about Daryl. The little furry tailed rats would holler and curse at Glenn in squirrel language, flicking their tails and darting fast from place to place, and when they stopped for too long, Daryl nailed them with the crossbow.

Daryl didn't hit them all directly – some of them just got knocked out of the tree by flying bark bits when the crossbow bolt hit right beside them. Then you had to scramble to grab the squirrel and brain it before it got up and staggered off. Daryl called it 'barking' the squirrels, like it was a real thing. Like _trots_. Glenn didn't argue, but he made Daryl hit the squirrels in the head.

They got four, before Daryl lost a second bolt and called a halt to it.

That made one little fish, one little turtle, one skinny rabbit from the snare and four squirrels. "I think we burned more calories than this, just climbing the hill," Glenn said, watching Daryl add the squirrels to the string. Daryl's mouth twisted and Glenn hastened to add, "But it's something, right? And we had to come get the lines, and take up the snares. Wouldn't be right to leave them."

Daryl cocked an eye at the sky. "Yeah. Need to get going, if we're going to eat these before we leave."

Halfway back, with the mental picture of the hawks in his head, and still trying to pick out the words to share it with Maggie, Glenn said, "I didn't think you were allowed to say these many words in one day."

He expected a single-finger reply. Instead, Daryl shrugged, making the squirrels bounce, and said, "Figured it was time." Daryl looked up at the sky again and then stopped, stripping out of his coat and overshirt.

"Daryl, I'm flattered, really I am, but I've already got a girl. And like you said, she's jealous and bitchy." That did get him the finger. Tucking the coat over the squirrel string, Daryl re-slung his crossbow and kept walking.

Ten minutes later, Glenn wished he had taken his coat off as well. "What do you mean, time?"

Daryl shrugged, looked back, kept walking. "Coming up on a bad time. Going to get rough."

Glenn blinked, realized he was falling behind, and hustled to catch up. "I don't get it. It's warmer. Got to be almost the end of March, right? Days are a lot longer. All that's good, right?"

Daryl shrugged. "Depends. Geese an' ducks left, most of them, two weeks ago. Still freezing at night – nothing's really growing yet, not even dandelions. We can't live on wild onions and starving rabbits – you felt that one, narrower than a pair a penny nails." He held a branch for Glenn. "Gonna be most of a month before things start turning. We ain't seen a walker in five days, but we can't stay here."

"So…but we already decided to move. We won't just be waiting here."

"We shift out of here, we shift back into trouble, where the walkers are. That's what's got Rick's panties all bunched up – we're safe here, but starving. We move from here, we'll be in a world of hurt, maybe."

Glenn shook his head, rejecting Daryl's pessimism as much as his words. "So…so we find a house. Find stuff to scavenge. We'll be fine. What happened to the zen master?"

Daryl's jaw clenched. When he spoke again, it was as if the words had been ground out between his teeth.

"Maggie knows how to ride."

"Wait. What? Ride what? Of course she knows how to ride a horse –"

"Not horses. Bikes."

Glenn stared. "How do you know that? I didn't know that."

Daryl shrugged. "Heard her talking to Beth about how noisy the Triumph was, about the rice rocket she had at college."

"Jesus." The thought of Maggie in black leather on a motorcycle very effectively short-circuited Glenn's brain. With effort, he dragged his mind back to reality. "So. Maggie can ride the Triumph. What are you saying?"

Now Daryl stopped and turned to face Glenn. "I'm saying, ten's a lot to feed. A lot to find gas for. A lot of noisy people banging around." His face had changed – not the old Daryl, spitting in anger, but something different, something harder. "Two…two might be easier."

"You can't be serious. Are you really thinking about leaving?"

Daryl scowled. "You ever stop jabbering long enough to listen? _No._ Not what I said."

"If you're not talking about leaving, then what –" Glenn had to actually stop and back track through the last five minutes. "No. Out of the question. _ No! _How could you - I'm not good enough, Maggie won't leave Beth, or her father, and I won't leave the rest of you." Daryl stood there, letting the shouting wash over him, his face expressionless.

When Glenn finished, Daryl shrugged, said, "All right," and turned around to lead the way back to camp.

Glenn jumped forward, grabbed Daryl by the arm.

Once upon a time, that would have gotten him decked. Now, Daryl just stiff-armed him back, scowling and fist clenched, but more bluster than bite. Glenn ignored it.

"Why haven't you gone? This – " he shook the bag "- this would keep you alive, for a day or so. You could do it again tomorrow, or shoot one of those hawks. Why don't you?"

Daryl just shook his head. "Got my reasons, chinaman. C'mon, before they up and leave us."

* * *

><p>The entry back to camp wasn't as bad as Glenn had expected. Rick had evidently just come back with the Suburban. The back gate stood open as Lori maneuvered the Grimes sleeping bags into the vehicle. Rick stuck his head around the end of the truck – <em>so he was actually helping Lori, good<em> – and motioned Daryl to him. Daryl went, just like always, just like he hadn't been trying to talk Glenn into taking off on his own twenty minutes before.

"I'll deliver the goods," Glenn said, to Daryl's back, and made his way over to the cook pit. Maggie dropped another load of firewood by the pile. Some of the ends actually looked dry.

"About time. You going to give me a hand with the tent?"

"Sure," he said. "Just give me a minute." That earned him a peck on the cheek from Maggie and a cheeky grin from Carol.

Glenn sighed and dug the game bag out of his backpack. "Here," he said, passing the noisome bag to Carol. There was a drip or two from the bottom – probably the turtle. "Not a lot – a fish, a turtle-" Carol's eyebrows went up as she pulled out the contents. "And a rabbit. Skinny, but, hey." There was probably as much meat on the little catfish as there was on the rabbit. And it would all be diced up, and boiled for soup, and they'd be picking little bones and gristle out of everything. Glenn's stomach rumbled. Carol laughed at him and passed the turtle to Beth, who already had their long knife out.

"Thank you, Glenn. We'll get these going right away." She patted his arm. Glenn started to ask her just how soon _right away_ might be, when he was cut off by Daryl's voice.

"Hey, Carol," Daryl called. Together, Glenn and Carol turned to look at Daryl, standing by the Suburban with Rick, one hand pinning the map against the hood.

With his free arm, Daryl shook the string of squirrels off his shoulder, swung them twice, and then launched them across the space between the Suburban and the fire. Carol stepped away from the fire, arms outstretched, and caught the squirrels as they came down, letting the motion spin her around entirely to end up next to the cutting board log. Her coat flared out as she turned; as she came to a halt it fell back again against her sides.

"Nice ca-" Glenn said, before his brain clicked over. _No. That was not what I think it was_.

Daryl had already turned to the map spread on the suburban's hood, Hersh and T and Maggie crowding close. Glenn looked at Carol, who was inspecting the squirrels with a critical eye.

"Go on, Glenn," she said, not even glancing at him. Her hair stood up in silver-grey spikes, and her nose was pink, clashing with her slate-blue jacket. "Beth and I have this."

Glenn let his feet carry him to the truck, let them put him just off of Maggie's elbow as Rick reported on the road he'd scouted, and stand and nod with the rest of them as Rick pointed out the route he wanted to take.

"Any questions?" Rick finished, looking from eye to eye. There were none. T-Dog and Carl kept looking over at the cooking pot. "All right. Finish packing. We'll go as soon as we eat."

Maggie hooked an arm in Glenn's and drew him away to their tent. Halfway through dismantling it, Glenn looked up. Daryl lounged on the watch log, the crossbow at his elbow. Shaggy hair – darker now, since the winter - brushed his collar. The heavy brown jacket lay slung over the log at his side. He'd changed pants, evidently – the new pair were light tan with fewer holes.

As Glenn watched, Daryl shifted a bit on the log. Just a bit, so that instead of watching just the fence, he had an eye on the campfire as well.

"Somethin' happen out there?" Maggie asked. "While you were hunting?"

"No. Not out there." He looked down at the slick nylon tent. For some reason, that answer didn't even feel evasive. Because nothing had happened. _Got my reasons_. It was all in his head. "We got some game, lost a fight with a turtle, Daryl got wet."

"In that swamp?" Maggie had gone with Daryl a couple of times, when Glenn had been sleeping off a late watch. "Lucky he didn't give himself hypothermia."

"Yeah. Lucky."

At the fire pit, Carol wedged another couple of logs under the pot, before turning to shoo Beth away from squirrel dicing. The girl strode across the yard to gather up the girls' folded tent and stow it in the Hyundai. Up on the watch log, Daryl was still watching the fence. And the firepit.

And Carol.

"He's not as lucky as you, though," Maggie said, and brought the far end of the tent to meet Glenn's hands. He took the edge of the tent from her, which let her grab his hands, and then lean in closer and bump noses with him. Glenn grinned at her – the goofy, lopsided grimace that he knew made him look like an idiot. She grinned back, kissed him fast on the mouth. "Nowhere near as lucky."

"Nope," Glenn agreed.

_But_, Glenn thought, _I might have to do something about that._

* * *

><p>End<p>

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Glenn/Maggie (off screen), Lori/Rick (not happy), Daryl/Carol (in the early stages). Smutless. Warnings for animal deaths, animal hunting, crude mentions of menstruation by rednecks raised by wolves and/or Merle Dixon, and liberties taken with natural histories of birds of prey.

**Endnotes:** For those not familiar with barking squirrels, _Old Yeller_ has a decent description.

So, I was paging through a _Birds of North America_ guide, thinking Team Group in the Wilderness thoughts, and came across the entry for Northern Harriers (_Circus cyaneus_). Which – before anyone gets all excited – are not exactly the 'mate for life' sorts, and nesting pairs in the southeast are unheard of. But I'd seen harriers before (not in the US) and had a chance to see them do the game trade-off, which was really incredible. And I had a picture of Daryl and Carol up on the comp at the same time as I was reading about the different plumage of male and female harriers, and how the size difference is really significant, even for birds of prey. And then this story more or less dropped into my head, demanded it be written, and then went off and did some other things – like Hershel and T, and Glenn bonding with Daryl – that I wasn't expecting.

Basically, it's just my version of 'How Glenn came to pilot The Good Ship Caryl.'

For those not familiar with barking squirrels, Old Yeller has a decent description. The Cornell Lab at allaboutbirds dot org has a nice section on Northern Harriers. Trot lines are extremely regional in application, and I would expect specifics to vary widely. They do seem the sort of thing Daryl Dixon would know from way back.


End file.
